{1} 𝐁𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐒𝐄𝐘𝐄 | p.jackson

𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺-𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦

| chapter twenty-three |

in which a "blessing from the wild" attacks
( so. . . how exactly is this a blessing? )

WHEN NIA WOKE UP FROM HER DREAM, she felt a wave of nostalgia. Back then, she'd thought the world of Luke. She looked at him like he hung the moon and stars. Now what?

Outside were snowy mountains dotted with pine trees, the sun rising red between two peaks. Looking around the Lamborghini, Nia saw Grover in the backseat and Percy in the drivers', both of them still sleeping.

Nia silently studied Percy's face. Turns out people really did look younger and more at peace when they slept. She smirked slightly at the bit of drool on Percy's chin.

Thalia suddenly opened the back door of the car and poked her head inside. "Hey, Nia, wake Percy and Grover up. We've gotta get going."

Nia nodded. "Alright, we'll be right there."

The volume of Thalia's voice effectively roused Grover from sleep, but Percy remained sleeping.

"Wake Percy up, will you?" Nia asked Grover. "I'm going outside with the others."

Grover nodded. "Sure. We'll meet you there." 

Nia slung Moonbeam over her shoulders and got up from the passenger seat, heading outside to join Thalia, Zoë, and Bianca outside. They'd arrived on the outskirts of a little ski town nestled in the mountains. The sign read: WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT, NEW MEXICO.

The air was cold and thin. The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow, and dirty mounds of it were piled up on the sides of the streets. Tall pine trees loomed over the valley, casting pitch-black shadows, even though the morning was sunny. 

Even though Nia had put on yet another coat from Moonbeam, she was freezing cold by the time they got to Main Street, which was about half a mile from the train tracks. 

As they walked, Percy and Nia told Grover about their conversation with Apollo the night before — how he'd told them to seek out Nereus in San Francisco. 

Grover looked uneasy. "That's good, I guess. But we've gotta get there first."

Nia and Percy glanced uneasily at each other, both of them feeling incredibly depressed. Nia knew that they had another huge deadline looming, aside from saving her mother in time for the council of the gods. The General had said that Annabeth would only be kept alive until the winter solstice. That was Friday, only four days away. And he'd said something about a sacrifice. 

But in order to keep from going insane, Nia did what she always did: crack jokes to distract people from the impending doom that they would inevitably face.

Nia smirked at Percy. "You drool when you sleep, you know." Then she pushed ahead, leaving him no chance to respond.

They stopped right in the middle of town. They could pretty much see everything from there: a school, a bunch of tourist stores and cafes, some ski cabins, and a grocery store.